Golden State Warriors 1997-1998 team signed basketball Spreewell / PJ Carlesimo

Description

Team Signed Ball from the infamous "The Incident" participants.    Ball is signed by both PJ Carlisimo and Latrell Spreewell.   1997-1998 team signed ball obtained directly from Warrior Adonal Foyle who provided the ball for a charity auction.  Ball does not have a COA.  Does have some minor leather bubbling from deflating and reflating.  NBA indoor/outdoor Stern official ball. NBA Authentics.
I have identified a number of signatures including:
Adonal Foyle #31
Bimbo Coles #12
Antawn Jamison #7
Duane Farrell #33
Donyell Marshall #3
Mugsy Bogues #1
Chris Mills
Terry Cummings #35
Brian Shaw
Tony Delk
Bob Staak (c)
and "Incident" participants Latrell Srpeewell and P.J. Carlesimo
All Warriors fans remember that day in 1998 when Spreewell......well here's the reporting:
AFTER `THE INCIDENT,' IT WAS TIME TO JUST PLAY BASKETBALL
Skip Myslenski, Tribune Staff Writer
CHICAGO TRIBUNE
The meeting was held a day after "the Incident." That is the disarmingly simple name
Joe Smith
, the
Golden State
forward, has given to all that unfolded on that afternoon of Dec. 1 on the practice floor of the Oakland Convention Center.
Latrell Sprewell threatening to kill Warriors coach P.J. Carlesimo. Sprewell grabbing Carlesimo by the throat and dragging him to the ground and choking him for about 10 seconds. Sprewell then disappearing for about 20 minutes before returning to go after Carlesimo once again. All of that was part of "the Incident," which threatened to fully exterminate a Warriors team that was then a bumbling 1-13.
That is why Muggsy Bogues, Brian Shaw and
Bimbo
Coles, a trio of veterans, called that meeting, and spoke forcefully to their young (nine with four years experience or less) teammates. "You got talent. Now it's up to you guys to step up and show what you're really capable of doing," Bogues said.
"No matter what the situation is, once you step on the court, it's on you. You can go out there and sulk or hold your head down. But, in reality, it's going to come back on you, so the best way to handle it is to go out there and perform."
"I think that hit home with the guys," Bogues said more than a month later. "Then they believed guys were in their corner and they could be successful on the court. Then we went and found a unit that could work, and were able to get some wins."
"They'd seen a lot of stuff, but even they said they'd never seen anything like that," added one of the young Warriors, fourth-year forward Donyell Marshall. "So when they said we had to keep moving forward, that got our attention. A lot of us younger players looked up to Spre. But after hearing that, we definitely had to look up to Muggsy too."
The Warriors immediately terminated the four-year, million contract Sprewell had signed before the start of last season, and the league suspended him for a year.
But somehow the Warriors survived all this chaos around them, and were galvanized by Bogues' words. Instead of crumbling, they grew stronger, tighter, in the wake of Sprewell's outbursts. Which is why they dropped by the United Center Saturday night to take on the Bulls having won six of the 17 games they've played since the troubles.
It did not matter that they were without their All-Star guard, who was a friend to many of them. Nor did it matter that "the Incident" did not really change Carlesimo, who still screams and swears. It was if they were released by all that occurred Dec. 1, and were suddenly freed from the tension that had surrounded them until then.
They were a torn team on that infamous afternoon, torn by the disdain Sprewell had long shown Carlesimo.
"Everyone knew that something was going to happen and that it was a situation that had to be addressed," Marshall said. "Everybody was waiting for it to be addressed, and then suddenly it was like, `It's over. Let's play basketball.' "
Has Carlesimo changed since then?
"Not really," Marshall said.
"He's mellowed a little bit," Bogues said. "But when you're that type of aggressive coach, you just can't eliminate it all. He minimizes it to a point."
Have you changed, Carlesimo is asked.
"No. I hope not," he said.
He is sitting in the coach's office just off the visitor's locker room at the United Center, and is busy preparing for Saturday night's game. With a hearing still ahead of him, he is under lawyers' orders not to discuss what happened that Dec. 1. But the performance of his team?
"The first couple of weeks it was just so enormous," Carlesimo said. "Not just the media scrutiny, which was a big part of it. But they (the players) couldn't go anywhere where that wasn't talked about or asked about. Whether it was family, friends, the grocery store, the gas station, anywhere they went.
"But this group is a good group. We've been saying that even when they weren't playing well. Their attitude has been very good. . .so, honestly, I'm not surprised that they've hung together as well as they have."
"We have just tried to take a negative and turn it into a positive," Bogues said. "But things at that point had hit rock bottom. There's wasn't anywhere for us to go but up."